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Does anyone here have any info about storing energy such as Wind Energy from a turbine in another form than batteries?

I've read about developments with compressed air but I've no idea how this would work on a small scale.

A friend of mine tells me that it might be more efficient to store energy as heat or at least to convert windpower directly to heat eg. drive a generator hooked up to an electric element.

I can't vouch for this though.

This website gives details of quite a few alternatives:
http://www.mpoweruk.com/alternatives.htm

I was tempted by the idea of pumping water up to a reservoir, myself, as we have steep land with a stream at the bottom, but then I did the calculations and found we'd be able to store about two thirds of a kilowatt hour!

I'd only use thermal storage if you wanted the electricity for heat anyway. If what you actually want is electricity, then you'd lose a lot of energy turning electricity into heat and back into electricity again.

I came to the conclusion that, for all their faults, batteries probably are the best.